


What happened in Between

by iiStarnet



Category: Tales from the Gas Station
Genre: Bedside Manor, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27411223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iiStarnet/pseuds/iiStarnet
Summary: I wanted to try my hand at an extra scene in the Bedside Manor series. One after the "Escape" ending, but before the "Epilogue."
Kudos: 9





	What happened in Between

To be completely honest, we had no idea where we were going. 

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Jerry and I could tell by the position of the manor, and by the memory of when we first walked up the hill that we came from the East. Then again, we weren’t even sure if that memory was legitimate, but given our circumstances, we had no other choice but to trust it. I nearly cried in relief when I heard the sounds of the engine starting up. My shitty old Nissan would yet again be our saving grace. 

Our car didn’t smell like it used to on this trip. It currently smelled like stale air with a hint of gasoline from the gas can we took with us after we burnt the manor down, just in case. It normally smelled like fast food and deodorant most of the time we didn’t keep the windows down. While the cassette player still had “La Vie en Rose” jammed into it, Jerry kept the spirit alive by bringing his small, rose-gold subwoofer and connected the jams on his phone to it via bluetooth. I was never one to sing or dance, but I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t sing along with Jerry to Britney Spears’s “Toxic”. Looking back, I probably sounded horrible, but Jerry’s big, dumb smile that grew on his face when he realized I was singing along was worth the personal embarrassment. Thinking about that smile on his face gave me tingly feeling in my stomach, one that I felt quite often around him. One that I tried not too hard to think about.

I looked over to Jerry as he was speeding down the empty street. He looked Haunted. His eyes were on the road, but I could tell he was staring at something thousands of miles away. His knuckles were white and boney as he gripped the steering wheel. I hated how quiet we were, but I couldn’t think of anything to break the ice with, so I stared out the window, watching the farmland pass by. The car slowed down slightly, and I gave myself a momentary panic attack thinking that the engine was breaking down. Turns out, Jerry was just easing on the brake pedal, trying to get the car slow enough. He must have decided that we were far enough to not do 60 over the speed limit. He cleared his throat a few times before deciding to speak.

“I’m sorry.”

I blinked in surprise, and I turned over to look at him. “Why are you sorry?” He wasn’t looking at me.

“For… For everything, honestly. I’m sorry for dragging you along for this roadtrip, I’m sorry for not getting the hell out of that Manor when you begged me to. I’m-” He voice broke a bit, and I could tell that there was so much he wanted to say to me.

“Jerry, stop. I’m not mad at you. What happened wasn’t your fault. You saw what was going on back there. We had no control over the situation.”

Jerry shook his head. “I didn’t have to take a shortcut. I didn’t have to drive us through the middle of nowhere. If I had just-” I cut him off. “Dude. What happened has happened. There's nothing we can do about it. No amount of “Sorry” can undo what happened. All we can do now is go the hell home.” I let out a breath. “I’m not mad at you, Jerry. If anything, I’m glad that you were at least here with me.” I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if I was alone in this.

I looked over to Jerry as I heard a small shudder escape his mouth. His eyes were red-rimmed and glossy. If I had any doubts that he was crying, they sure as hell were gone now. “I-” He started, but his voice broke halfway in. He sniffed, and cleared his throat before continuing. “I went through a lot of shit in those weird, fake worlds, man.”

I was genuinely surprised at that. “What do you mean?”

Jerry shook his head. “It was...Old stuff. Traumatic stuff. New stuff that I really didn’t want to hear from y- uh… from anyone.” It sounded like he was about to say “stuff that I really didn’t want to hear from _you._ ” It surprised me. All of the fake worlds I had been thrown into were weird, but ultimately harmless. If anything, some of them put me in a position where I was actively benefiting in some way.

Okay, maybe not in the sexy vampire world. The thought of Loren being reduced to essentially a vampiric sex doll with her tits out made me uncomfortable. _Eugh._

Still though, I could understand that Jerry didn’t want to talk about what happened back there. I didn’t feel like talking about it either, honestly. I still felt odd though, wondering what could have shaken Jerry up so badly. 

“What...did you see back there?” Jerry didn’t answer for a full minute. I thought that he was just trying to ignore me, but he ended up surprising me when he said, “I’ll tell you one day. I promise. Just not today. I need to be ready.” I nodded. I could tell it must have had something to do with his past, and if Jerry didn’t want me prying, that’s fine with me.

It wasn’t long until we came to a structure that I was quite familiar with. A Gas Station. I sighed in relief, while Jerry literally moaned. “Thank god, we can get some fucking food. If we’re lucky, this place will also have an ATM.” My stomach rumbled like a storm cloud at the mention of eating anything. Once we parked, I practically leapt out of the passenger side, and headed to the automatic doors of the shitty little gas station in the middle of nowhere. For a moment, I felt right at home.

But only for a moment.

A dark, twisted feeling coiled in my gut the second I took a longer look at the place. Something about it was familiar. I stopped dead in my tracks so that I could take a better look. I had never driven in this area before this road trip, it didn’t look like my gas station, and I sure as hell do not remember seeing it while we drove down this abandoned road.

_Right?_

My migraine started up again. The same migraine I got when I tried to remember how exactly we even got to Bedside Manor in the first place. Now that I actually thought about it, I didn’t even remember seeing the Manor before everything got blurry. The last thing I remembered was Jerry commenting that we “still had half a tank of gas, so let’s just stop for snacks.”

A shiver ran up my spine. _We’ve been here before._

I heard Jerry softly approaching behind me, and then stopping right next to me. “Something’s not right here.” He sounded unsure of how he knew, only that he just _knew_.

I reached my hand closest to him, and grasped his hand in a firm hold. “Stay next to me.” It was more of a plea than a command. Something was very, very wrong here. Somehow, I already knew that there were cracks near the pavement. Somehow, I knew about the wasp nest near one of the gas pumps. Somehow, I knew that there were raccoons living here too, just like my gas station. Only, they didn’t seem half as rabid. I knew all of these things because the first time Jerry and I came here, I pointed all of them out. He joked that I was feeling homesick for the shitty little gas station at the edge of my hometown. I couldn’t admit to him that the only time the gas station felt homey to me was when Jerry was there with me. 

It wasn’t the moment the automatic doors opened with a chime, it wasn’t the moment I stepped through the doorway, it was the exact moment I locked eyes with the redhead cashier that all the memories came flooding back.

  
  


***

  
  


_Ding - Dong ~_

I always hated that stupid chime businesses put at the front door. Back when I first started out at the gas station, when Sabine was still alive, I begged the owners to remove that chime. It was grating to my ears. Mammaw thought it added some “class” to the Gas station, but Pops agreed that ultimately, it was a stupid accessory. As I stepped in and looked around the place, I couldn’t help but go through a checklist of all the things I needed to keep track of as the owner of my gas station. But then I remembered, this _isn’t_ my gas station. We were miles away and supposed to be on Vacation. If Jerry had caught me checking the place out, he didn’t comment on it. 

I looked over to see Jerry eye-ing up the drink case, and made a mental note to scold him if he tried to buy any. We made an agreement that there shall be no booze during the driving portion of the trip. It was only when we got to the Pacific ocean that we would eat some nice junk food and drink like fish. I started walking around, up and down the aisles to look for any snacks I would fancy.

_Krikrikrikrikri._

I whipped my head around to look for the source of that noise, blissfully unaware of what it would entail. I couldn’t pinpoint where it came from. A dark feeling sat in my gut that I was too stupid to pay attention to. I shrugged it off and went back to looking.

“Can I help you with anything Sir?” The voice that came from behind me was bored, and was probably hoping I would say no. I looked to see the cashier. He had red hair, ice blue eyes and a galaxy of freckles on his face, with a very tired look in his eye. I said what I would hope a customer would say if I was in his situation.

“No, I’m just thinking about what to get. Thanks though.”

He shrugged and headed back to the counter. I looked back at the snacks, and picked out a bag of Sour Cream and Onion chips, along with a bottle of some decaffeinated sugar drink. I eyed the hot Fried Chicken case, salivating at it’s savory smell before physically shaking my head as if it would clear the hunger from my head. It certainly wasn’t the hot dog roller I had at my gas station, but god knows how often I actually cleaned the thing. I wouldn’t put it past the cashier if he hadn’t cleaned the case in weeks considering how little traffic must come through here. I saw a bag of pork rinds, one of my guilty pleasures, and grabbed it. I met up with Jerry who had a bag of pralines, hot Cheetos, 2 Gatorade bottles, and was grabbing a piece of fried chicken (with his bare hands, I might add.) 

We made our way to the counter, and my nose wrinkled at the heavy smell of fresh, hot coffee. A caffeine addiction is nothing to joke about. We placed the items on the counter, and the guy began to scan them all. “Anything else for y'all?” Jerry’s eyes darted to the cigarettes behind him, before declining with a solemn expression on his face. A nicotine addiction is nothing to joke about.

If I hadn’t been paying attention, I wouldn’t have noticed the cashier freeze up before his eyes darted above me and Jerry. He stared at something miles away for a quick second, before nodding and continuing to scan our items, slightly slower now. I raised an eyebrow, Jerry hadn’t noticed.

_Krikrikrikrikri._

I looked up to where I heard the noise from. There was a large vent above Jerry and I. Jerry looked up as well.

“Damn, sounds like y’all got some crickets up there.” He smiled to himself. “Probably not as bad as raccoons, huh?” He looked over to the Cashier, trying his best to lighten the mood with some small talk. The Cashier didn’t say anything. The dark feeling in my gut got stronger.

“So… what’s our total?” I really didn’t like how _empty_ this guy looked. He was looking right through us, and also at us at the same time. Jerry raised an eyebrow at his continued silence, and waved a hand in front of his face.

“Hey, you good bro? You seizing up? You need us to make some room for you?” 

**_Krikrikrikrikri._ **

The sound was much louder now. I didn’t have time to think. I didn’t even have time to scream as one of those bugs landed onto my head.

Their tongues dropped from the vent, coiling around my limbs, holding me still. Jerry jumped back and screamed, before leaping to try and wrestle them off of me. A dozen more tongues dropped and eventually, they trapped Jerry too. We panicked as we screamed and thrashed. I begged the cashier to stop standing there and help us. 

**_Krikrikrikrikri_ ** _._

But he didn’t move. He didn’t even raise a brow. I knew right there and then that this was something he had seen a hundred times before. I felt my jaw get forced open by the legs of one of the insects, and felt the rubbery tongue enter my mouth and slither down my throat, nestling into my stomach and guts. I held eye contact with the man, and in my last second in reality, I swore I saw him smile at me, with those Icy, empty eyes.

  
  


[ *** ](https://www.gasstationjack.com/post/welcome-to-bedside-manor)

  
  


Those same cold eyes looked at me with pure fear and terror in them. 

At that moment, the three of us realized the same thing. We were the last people in the world that he was expecting to walk back through those doors. I felt something I hadn’t felt since we were trapped in the manor.

I was really fucking pissed off.

All the pain and suffering I had endured, that Jerry had endured, the reason that Claire and Loren were dead, it was all because of this douchebag behind the counter. Instincts swirled in me, I wanted to do so much in that moment. Open my mouth and scream, lunge at him, grab at him, make him _suffer makehimhurt_

**BANG!**

My body jerked as the gunshot rang out. I instinctively fell to the ground and covered my head. Moments passed, and all I could hear was heavy breathing. Jerry’s heaving breathing. I looked up to see that he was pointing the gun at the counter. I looked over to see the cashier slumped over the counter, with a bullet hole right between the eyes. Jerry had fired the last 9mm from Tobias's gun, and it was a hell of a shot. Even in the moment of instinctual fear, I was very impressed with what a crackshot Jerry can be. _I wonder where he learned it from._

He looked down at me, and it was clear what was going through his head. Claire wasn’t around anymore, but I could read his thoughts clear as day.

_Let’s burn this fucker down._

The Gas station was burnt in minutes, the gas can we kept with us came in very handy. I didn’t know how long it took for the flames to reach the gasoline under the earth. I wasn’t even sure if there was any actual fuel at this dump. But I didn’t care. Jerry and I raided the place with all the food we could carry, and we booked it back home. We gorged ourselves in shitty food, and even shittier drinks, and despite the fact that we burnt 2 buildings to the ground that day, all I could wonder was what I was going to tell everyone when we got back home.

Maybe they’ll cry. Maybe they’ll yell at us, asking us what took so long. Maybe they’ll see how emaciated we are and take us to the hospital. I wasn’t sure honestly. 

The one thing I was sure of is that neither Jerry and I are never taking any shortcuts ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> had a fucked up idea that was basically "what if theres an evil gas station" after re-reading bedside manor, and this happened


End file.
